Economic concerns led this week’s news agenda, initially with chancellor George Osbourne downgrading the UK’s growth prospects for 2012 to 0.7 per cent in his autumn budget statement as well as admitting the deficit will take longer to eradicate. In addition to these concerns, Wednesday played host to the largest public sector strikes for over 35 years as staff walked out over a dispute relating to pension reforms.

A fascinating side-effect of the strikes was a media storm relating to comments made by the controversial broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson who asserted that the individuals involved should be “lined up and shot”. In a completely unrelated story, sales of this year’s Top Gear book and Mr Clarkson’s own DVD have skyrocked.

Despite these widely covered topics, the most frequent articles of the week were tributes of the former professional footballer and Wales manager Gary Speed, who tragically took his own life on Sunday. Read more …